Eric stood back as the stasis field fell.

Freed from the effects, the creature lashed out with blinding speed, its actions faster than most eyes could follow.

But not fast enough to stop Eric from flicked his hand to the left, his telekinesis sending the monster high into the air, arcing towards the nearby camp. Specifically, towards a sleeping guard, one of the locals that he had hired to protect his new flock. As it landed, it lashed out in fury. Its claws a whirlwind of rage as it dug into the unfortunate fool.

Eric watched, doubting the man had time to wake-up before he was already dead.

He reached for his side; not for the sword at his hip, but for the handle of a bell that rested next to it and as he began to swing it back and forth, with a great bellow he screamed, “MONSTER! MONSTER IN THE CAMP!” he began running towards the camp.

The sound of brass meeting brass ringing out as he quickly descended the hill, though Eric had little doubt that the sound would be drowned out in the sea of noise that polluted the area, the masses of people always talking as loudly and as frequently as possible, even when they had nothing to say.

The femme fatal had yet to relent in its butchery of the now long dead guard, his body barely recognisable as belonging to something human, but upon hearing the beat of his feet pounding along the ground as he ran, the creature turned towards him, tensing the powerful muscles in its legs, it launched itself.

He raced towards it, and it towards him, the distance between them shrinking with every fraction of a second; another flick of his hand, another blast of telekinetic energy, and once again he was sending it flying, this time deep into the hastily constructed city of tents.

He followed it. He was not too fast in doing so, mind you, he still wanted to take full advantage of the beautiful beast.

The creature landed on the grass-covered ground with the grace of a cat. A vicious and foul-tempered cat. So, a cat.

Instead of attacking, this time the monster chose to retreat and fled in the opposite direction.

Eric had purposefully sent her to the main pathway, a five-metre-wide strip of space, that if it were paved, would have been called a road. It led to the heart of the camp.

He chased after her as she ran towards it, swinging his bell all the way.

He was soon joined in his pursuit by several guards and to his surprise, not all were adventurers. Three guards hired from the locals had flanked him on his left as he raced down the grass highway, the confused look on their faces leading him to believe that they had no idea what was going on and were there just to try and make it look like they were earning their pay. He did not know if they would run when they finally caught up to the monstrous bitch, but it did not really matter as there was little a mundane human could do other than to act as a meat-shield, he had only hired them so there would be fewer complaints from the locals when they could police themselves, proving to be of little use otherwise. Actually…

The beast had entered the town’s square, a rough circle of space used by the various local representatives as a meeting place to discuss better and more annoying ways to get up his ass, but at the moment it was playing host to a group of performers who had set up a crude stage where they were currently entertaining a mass of slack-jawed idiots with depictions of violence and debauchery.

Said idiots turning towards him as he and his retinue entered the clearing, the creature in front of them slowing as indecision set in. The people in the area and those passing through forming a shifting maze of human bodies. Bodies that those claws on the tips of its hands could easily slice through once it realised its back was against the wall.

Dougherty and his sisters came in from the left, while several more local guards arrived from the opposite side of him. They had the thing nearly cornered, a development that had Eric swearing under his breath. The chase had ended far too early for his liking, leaving him with little room to further exploit it, so far this night would have little effect other being something for the crowd to talk about, come morning the people would have already forgotten him and the sole casualty of the midnight beast. He looked round for some way to prolong it.

As the she-beast let loose a mournful, feminine wail, the sound melodic and heart-wrenching in its despair, the people gathered round, watching from afar he and his men drew in closer. Eric saw the anger in their eyes, the nasty foreigners chasing after a defenceless, naked woman. How shameful. Not that any of them would have lifted a finger to help her.

A small gap formed in the wall of onlookers, through which the creature launched itself in its desperation to escape. They made to follow, but Eric and his group were waylaid when they were confronted by the personal guard of one of the few noble families that had temporarily joined their waggon train. A family whose title had too many ‘of’s and ‘the’s in it. Though most of them were like that, he mused.

They were always getting up his ass about anything they could, especially if they could do it in public. To show the lesser locals that the family would always keep the foreigners in their place or some shit like that.

Petty, pointless politics.

Though in his opinion, thinking that was about the same as saying ice cold.

The fool in front, a brown-haired, brown-eyed, average-sized man with less than average looks, began the usual idiocy of male posturing, inflating his chest while thumping it, a few choice swear words barked at whoever he felt threatened by, and the occasional short-step forward, with a few of his cronies jumping in from time to time. All to prove he had the biggest dick in the bunch. But that performance and the background noise of the watching crowd ensured that the morons had failed to notice when the screaming started.

A sound, that to Eric, was more sweeter than any song.

These people had lost everything, their lands, their belongings, their loved ones…they had nothing. If this were a story of from Earth, he would have helped lift them up from their despair, gaining their respect and loyalty with the offer of a helping hand and they would have made him their king.

But reality was far more blunt in its interpretation of how things should go. These belligerent fucks would have never given him their loyalty, no matter what he did for them, even now they barely afforded him the basic civility that they would offer to the scum of society.

No, what these people needed to be was broken, to be plunged into the very depths of despair. Only then, would they consider taking his hand in friendship. Not that he would offer, no, he would offer them the promise of hope, like any institution on Earth would, under the condition the they offer him their obedience.

It was not his plan, he brought it together using examples from history, the government, the church…hell, even the Nazi’s if he had to. Patriotism, fascism, excommunication and a little bit of psychological warfare to seal the deal and he would mould these people into the perfect followers. He had done it with many of his previous expeditions and the only change this time being the greater numbers that he would have to deal with.

The two groups looked to the side as the screaming escalated in the distance.

He would not gain much if they let him pass, so he flicked his wrist and activated [NUT CRUSHER] on their leader.

“To the monster! We’ll deal wi…” his command was halted as the noble’s guard retaliated.

Like he knew they would.

His only reason to shout out being that he wanted those who bore witness to tonight’s events to be able to say that he tried to deal with these idiots as quickly as possible. When everything was said and done, people would be looking for someone to blame and having an arrogant nob to point the finger at was always a boon.

One of the alpha wannabes a taller man, with blond hair and grey eyes, took up the void left by their fallen commander, who was currently curled up on the in the foetal position and crying, leading the charge forward. He brandished an axe towards Eric, swinging it over and down upon him. Eric raised his left arm to block the descending blade. To the blond warrior’s shock, the axe deflected of Eric’s forearm, leaving nary a scratch. [UNSEEN SHIELD], an ability that created a localised force-field around his lower left arm. The warrior was quick to recover, readying his axe for another attack.

Eric flicked his left finger, delivering a small cut along the man’s brow. The wound would bleed out into the man’s eyes, the blood obscuring his vision. The opening it that it would create was not for Eric to take advantage of, but to prolong this battle as long as possible. With his abilities, the warrior before him stood no chance of winning.

He looked round to view the battlefield. The others were fine, unlike the blond warrior, the rest of his group were still mostly posturing, twirling their blades, quick thrusts of their spears into the air. All merely going through the motions of battle, though, with few willing to deliver an actual blow, at least to a fellow local, the ones facing Earthers were far less reluctant to hold back, but like their new leader, they had little chance of overcoming them and Dougherty and the rest new the score, they would try to give him as much time as possible. That was not necessarily a good thing, however, the locals were not entirely stupid and if Eric and the other took too long, they would catch on to it and more importantly latch onto it as further evidence of the Earther’s desire to screw them over.

Eric and his team continued their dance with the noble’s guards for more than a minute, going back and forth while doing as little as possible. He himself shouting extreme obscenities in the locale’s tongue and warning them they were killing innocent people. More pandering for the crowd, but he would need as much support as possible for tomorrow’s lynching.

People were starting to flood into the square, people covered in blood, many were screaming something about their family. The morons in front of him were stupid, but even they started to realise that something was happening, that maybe they should not have been standing in the way of him and his crew.

Eric took charge and lead them past the throng of screaming people. He noticed Dougherty delivering a kick or two in the face to the nutless leader and Blondie before they left. He would have to keep an eye on those two.

Past the crowd, following the wailing of victims, he led them forward, to where the creature was last seen.

It had gotten into one of what he called castles, large tents where the various unrecognised families, the well to do peasants, kept their women and children while the men took it in turns guarding them. The people of this world may have been more peaceful than those on Earth, but when shit hit the fan, they were as human as everyone else.

It had butchered them all, the few guards that were posted no match for the she-thing that faced them. All that was left was a charnel house that they would have to burn in the morning in case any of them rose. A monster may have had its uses, but the dead were nothing but a nightmare to deal with. Especially in such a crowded and disorganised camp such as his.

Bodies lay strewn across the floor of the tent, mostly children and the few people that had remained to protect them. Despite the popular belief that the modern world had deluded itself into taking as fact, mothers would not always sacrifice themselves for their offspring. Eric would not have lain blame on any of them for not staying to die. After all, he thought, children were not miracles, they were just a romp in the hay and a nine-month investment and a living woman could always have more children.

They searched through the tent, looking for signs of which direction their quarry had fled, in the corner of his eye, he noticed a pile of bodies shift, but too late as the beast forth, launching itself at a nearby guard, one of the local ones.

A finger through the man’s neck took his head clean off, his still-beating heart sending his blood streaming into the air, showering those around him in a crimson spray; Eric let loose with his abilities, local or not, they were his people and he would never sacrifice them without justifiable cause to do so.

Eric stepped forth to confront it, but slipped upon the gore slick ground, his foot flying high into the air as he himself went crashing to the floor, his armour doing little to cushion his fall.

The beast did let the opportunity pass by and jumped towards him; like on the hill, its claws extended towards him, its desire to gut him evident to all.

One of the local guards, a woman, ran into its side, knocking it down mid-flight, the force of the confrontation, sending the beast two metres to his left; the beast turned to counter-attack, no scream, no hiss of rage, just deadly intent; Eric stopped her with [ETHEREAL GRASP], its body spasming as it tried to crush her, but even with the skill maxed out, the force of its effect was far too weak to do any damage, so he flung her outward. The woman helped up, then along with the others behind him, they continued the chase.

But not for long.

Outside the tent, a ragtag militia alongside a few of his own guards had surrounded the place, forming a wall of bodies, a spiked wall, as they pointed their collection of crude weapons inward, ensuring that any who would clash with them would not have a nice day for doing so. They did not approach, however, preferring that he and his people risk life and limb instead.

The thing new it was trapped, the look on its face spoke of the chaos brewing within its mind, after a moment it seemed to be coming to a decision; Eric did let it do whatever it had intended, however, he knew that prey was never more dangerous than when its back was against the wall; he took within [ETHEREAL GRASP] once again, this time with the intent of finishing the final act of his play.

His actions were for nought, however, as the moment he had the thing within his unseen hold, it let loose an unearthly shriek; he felt his body go numb, his body collapsing to the ground. He could do nothing but stare as the beast looked round, many of the people around them had fallen to the same effect, but enough had resisted to keep the monster contained.

It launched itself towards him in some final act of vengeance, and again it was the spear-woman who saved him. Holding her spear sideways, she launched the thing back with the wooden shaft of her weapon, but not before the creature swatted her in the side of her head with the back of its hand.

Their confrontation stopped, the creature, having the breath forced from its lungs knelt on the ground gasping for air, the spear-woman shaking her head, seemingly left confused from the earlier blow.

Eric pulled himself up; not willing to let anything else happen, he finally took the situation seriously and, with his mana low and many of his abilities no longer accessible, he resorted to using [VADER’S CHOKE] on the she-beast; the thing clutched at its neck, claws digging into its own throat as it tried to free itself from the power strangling it.

As loud as he could, Eric screamed, “DO IT, KILL THAT FUCKING THING!”

Awoken from her daze, the woman rushed forward and thrust her spear through the beast with all her strength, soon joined by her companions in arms; the tips of several various weapons following the spear to its destination, skewering the she-thing as it reached for the woman that had impaled her.

Its death was silent, its earlier attack having left it vocal cords shredded. The creature slipped into oblivion as its blood soaking the grass beneath its feet.

As the light vanished from its eyes, a loud roar filled the air. The people screamed in triumph.

Eric fell to his knees, exhausted and spent. At least that’s what everyone had better have been thinking, he needed these people to be telling the tale of this grand fight for as long as possible. In actual fact, aside from that earlier slip-up and the creatures stun attack, this had been one of the easiest fights that he had been in for quite some time.

As to why he had that spear woman deliver the finishing blow? He needed a local to do the deed; not because he lacked the ability, he could have torn the bitch limb from limb with a mere thought, no, because they would not have given two shits otherwise, they would instead say that it was his job to do such things, even when it was not. And then they would complain about how incompetent he was for letting things get this far.

That it was one of the locals that had been working for him, now that was icing on the cake. With that, the various community assholes, or leaders as they liked to call themselves, would not have reason to say that he and his people were not doing their jobs. They still would, of course, but at least he would have something to throw back in their faces when they did so.

He stood there, listening to the cheer of the crowd as they lifted the spear woman aloft, shouting her name as they paraded around the fallen monster.

He stared up into the night sky while a cool breeze blew against his face. The adrenalin in his system subsiding, he let himself relax.

As he let his stress melt away with the wind, he sighed.

It was going to be a long day tomorrow.